Blog Article
Best Nice Weather Day of the Week: July 7, 2026
Tuesday July 7 delivers the week's top nice weather scores, with Beautiful conditions in Seattle, Grand Rapids, and Burlington. Here's how the rest of the week plays out.
Today Is the Best Day of the Week, and the Pacific Northwest Knows It
After a brutal stretch of flooding, tornadoes, and dangerous heat across much of the country, today is the day the map actually rewards you for being in the right place. The Nice Weather outlook page has Day 1 at Beautiful, with zone-average scores in the upper 80s and a handful of cities clearing 92 out of 100. That is the ceiling for today, and it is a real ceiling worth planning around.
Where Tuesday Earns Beautiful
The top of today's national rankings is dominated by the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes. Seattle, Portland, Salem, Eugene, and Grand Rapids all score 92.0 individually. Burlington, Vermont matches that number too, with a high of 82.4°F, dewpoint of 56.1°F, UV of 7.4, and AQI of 49. These are not soft scores. Precipitation chances across the Beautiful zone are just 2%, cloud cover averages 14%, and zone-average dewpoints sit at 53.2°F. That is the kind of air where you step outside at 8 a.m. and immediately feel like the day has already done something right for you.
Seattle specifically comes in at 73.7°F for a high with a dewpoint of 55.7°F and UV right at 7.0. If you have been waiting for a reason to eat breakfast on the patio or take the dog to the park without sweating through your shirt, today is your Tuesday.
Montana is in on it too. Great Falls scores 92.0, and Butte and Helena both match that. The northern Rockies are having a quietly excellent day.
A note on Santa Maria and Ruidoso: both land at 82.0 in the Beautiful tier, but Santa Maria is dealing with sustained winds of 17.4 mph gusting to 20.5 mph, and Ruidoso is sitting at UV 9.0, right at the Beautiful gate ceiling. Both are genuinely nice days, but the wind in Santa Maria and the sun exposure in Ruidoso are worth factoring in if you are spending extended time outside.
The Great Lakes and Upper Midwest: One More Good Day Before Things Shift
Grand Rapids at 92.0 is today's standout for the Midwest, with a high of 85.0°F, dewpoint of 60.4°F, only 14% cloud cover, and winds averaging 9.0 mph. Milwaukee and Madison are both running Beautiful scores as well. The Athletics are in Detroit tonight, and that ballpark should have comfortable conditions for a Tuesday game.
This matters because Wednesday changes things across the region. The Storm Prediction Center has a Slight Risk for severe storms across the Upper Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi Valley on Wednesday, and WPC carries a Slight Risk for excessive rainfall there too. So if you are anywhere from Green Bay to Minneapolis and you have outdoor plans this week, today is the day to use them.
Wednesday: The Northeast Gets Its Turn
Day 2 is a different story geographically. The Pacific Northwest and the Hudson Valley of upstate New York become the Beautiful zones on Wednesday, July 8. Albany, NY scores 92.0 with a high of 81.5°F, dewpoint of 59.9°F, only 14% cloud cover, and winds of 5.8 mph gusting to 10.9 mph. That is a genuinely lovely mid-summer afternoon. Medford, Oregon also hits 92.0 on Wednesday with a cloudless sky and dewpoint of 50.0°F.
The caveat for the Northeast: the severe storm risk on Wednesday is focused farther west toward the Great Plains and Upper Midwest, so Albany and the Hudson Valley look reasonably clean. UV sits at 7.7 in that corridor though, so sunscreen still applies.
Thursday Through the Weekend: The West Holds, Everyone Else Waits
By Thursday, July 9, the story consolidates to the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies. Portland, Salem, Eugene, Bend, Medford, and Coeur d'Alene all score 92.0 that day, with zone-average cloud cover of just 8% and a precipitation probability of 1%. That is essentially a cloudless day from the Oregon coast through western Montana. Missoula comes in at 82.0 with a high of 72.8°F and 14% clouds. These are trailhead-opening, kayak-launching kind of conditions.
Friday through Sunday the national outlook caps at Nice for Days 4 through 7, per forecast-day ceiling rules. The best weather stays pinned to the Pacific Coast and parts of the Northwest, while a broad upper-level ridge builds over the central U.S. and drives heat concerns across the Southeast and eventually the North-Central states. WPC's extended discussion flags major heat risk for portions of the Southeast and north-central CONUS this weekend. Large sections of the Sun Belt are being excluded from the nice weather outlook entirely due to heat index values exceeding the heat stress cap, which tells you something about conditions there.
Seattle and Portland remain in the Nice tier through Day 7, which is July 13. If you are thinking about a trip to the Pacific Northwest anytime in the next week, the forecast is as consistent as you could ask for in mid-July.
The Weekly Picture: Southern Oregon Wins the Week
The weekly top cities ranking is a clean sweep for the Rogue Valley and the southern Willamette Valley. Medford, Ashland, Talent, and Phoenix, Oregon all average 84.9 out of 100 across all seven days, each with seven qualifying nice weather days. That is a remarkable run. Corvallis, Albany (Oregon), Olympia, and the Lacey-Tumwater corridor all post 83.4 weekly averages with perfect seven-day streaks as well.
For context on California: Los Angeles, Sacramento, and much of the state are on a 29-day qualifying streak through today. That is impressive for consistency, though the scores in the extended period reflect the heat building in the interior valleys. Redding and Shasta Lake are also at 29 days, but their individual scores in the outer days are modest as temperatures climb.
The Short Version
Today, Tuesday July 7, is the best day of the next seven for the most people. If you are in the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes, or northern New England, take the afternoon. The rest of the week narrows quickly as heat expands across the southern and central U.S. and storm chances work through the Upper Midwest. The West Coast and Pacific Northwest hold their ground all week, but the Beautiful and Perfect scores belong to today.